An historic North Wales castle was the setting for a gravity-defying project to send a smartphone up to the edge of space.

An iPhone 6 was wrapped in a "military grade" case and launched from a site near Chirk Castle – obtaining the amazing footage shown above.

The video shows the device soaring 100,000ft into the stratosphere while attached to a weather balloon, demonstrating the durability of its protective case, manufactured by California-based Urban Armor Gear.

Derbyshire-based web firm www.sentintospace.com was recruited to organise with the daring launch with the UK firm stumbling on the location of Chirk after a series of stringent stimulations - although from the video screen-grab below, exact geographical knowledge was not too paramount as we all know Chirk is in North Wales.

Company Director Chris Rose said: “We do a lot of launches near our Ashbourne base but needed to look for a location with a prevailing westerly wind and enough clearance for a safe landing that would be away from the sea as well.

“After running a number of simulations, about five or six miles in accuracy of the landing point, we calculated a roughly convenient area for launch but came across Chirk Castle purely by chance after driving around the area."

Amazingly, the mobile phone and its protective case withstood 70mph winds, temperatures below -56C (-69F) and rotation speeds of 150 revolutions per minute during its descent, deeming the test a success.

And Chris Rose confirmed the company have already returned to Chirk to carry out a number of low-key test launches ahead of a major new project set to be revealed in the coming months.

Although remaining coy on specific details, he said: “The project is going to have a massive reach of people.”

Chris and business partner Alex Baker have been working on projects exploring the edge of space for around 3-and-a-half years and encourage anyone with similar ideas to get in touch via their website .